The transition from the helicopter's pressurized cabin to the rooftop of the Grand Duke's facility was jarringly swift. Moments after their casual yet tense dialogue ended, the aircraft settled with a soft pneumatic hiss onto a vast, reinforced landing pad in Brooklyn.
The site resembled a monolithic, brutalist factory—a structure designed for heavy industry rather than aristocratic retreat.
Zhou Yi immediately registered the heavy, artificial scent of concentrated disinfectant and ozone, overlaid with a faint, metallic tang of industrial solvents. This was not the smell of an ancient, undisturbed vampire domain; it was the smell of extreme, active paranoia.
The compound was ringed by ubiquitous, high-intensity ultraviolet spotlights and patrolled by security guards in tactical gear, far too numerous for a simple private residence.
A true patriarch, secure in his authority, projects calm, Zhou Yi's internal analysis ran, contrasting the scene with his own secluded, minimally guarded estate.
This man, Elida Maginos, is not calm. He is a shell, using technology and hyper-vigilance to mask profound instability. He has bites, but they are not metaphorical.
Nisha Maginos, now on the ground, became all business. She snapped the silver mink cloak around her shoulders, covering the sleek black jumpsuit, and subtly adjusted the heavy, crested signet ring on her finger—a deliberate, ritualistic act of assuming her public mantle.
She gave Zhou Yi a dismissive gesture to follow, making no pretense of shared camaraderie, the conversational thaw of the flight completely reversed.
Zhou Yi, in the Dawn Type II armor, followed. His jet-black armor was a physical contradiction in the harsh, artificial light. The sleek, powerful plates clung to his form, casting a terrifying, predatory silhouette. He moved with the fluid grace of a black panther, the silver 'Dawn' emblem on his shoulders the only visible contrast to the overwhelming darkness of his suit.
To the heavily armed guards and the handful of veiled figures lurking near the landing zone, the Dawn Knight was not a hero.
He was the most recent, terrifying addition to the forces of destruction. His infamy, accumulated over a mere three nights of devastating action, surpassed the hard-won, decade-long reputation of the seasoned vampire hunter Blade.
Blade, with his katana, silver bullets, and endless attrition, had killed thousands over ten years. The Dawn Knight, with his light and his incomprehensible speed, had reduced hundreds of organized vampires to fine ash in only three sorties—a kinetic and theological violation of their existence that terrified them more than mere murder.
The guards and functionaries regarded Zhou Yi with a mixture of profound, biological terror and burning aristocratic hatred.
Ants judging the elephant's shadow, Zhou Yi dismissed them, ignoring their fear and following Nisha into the sterile entrance.
The interior security measures were even more stringent. Nisha led them to a plain, brushed-steel elevator bank. She placed her slender hand against a complex, highly specialized authentication scanner. It was not a simple biometric reader; five impossibly thin hypodermic needles extended slowly, silently, sliding into the soft skin between her knuckles.
The system was performing skeletal DNA and deep dermal analysis, an invasive process designed to defeat any disguise short of a total biological clone. Zhou Yi observed the faint, deep frown that crossed Nisha's beautiful, cold face, a fleeting moment of vulnerability that exposed the routine discomfort of her life.
The elevator plunged deep beneath the earth, its speed unnervingly fast, finally opening into a circular room carved entirely out of bedrock. The only objects present were the elevator shaft and a massive, complex mechanical device dominating the center of the floor.
Nisha produced a heavy, metallic cylinder—a key or token—and inserted it into a grooved slot on the device. The room groaned with the sound of grinding gears and high-torque hydraulics. A colossal section of the stone wall slowly retracted, revealing not an inner sanctum, but an intermediate barrier: a sheer, imposing wall of hyper-thick, segmented metal.
"Behold, the true face of the Vampire Empire," Nisha announced, the words laced with pride and a hint of weary arrogance. "This is the command center, the heart of our power."
Zhou Yi felt his disappointment rise. An empire? This entire setup was a desperate overcompensation. The door was immense, dwarfing his own lab door, but unlike his, which opened with a simple telekinetic command, this required clumsy, noisy mechanical effort.
As the massive metal door slowly began its excruciatingly loud, mechanical retreat, a stark contrast appeared. The air shifted from the cold ozone of the outside to the dank, musty grandeur of an ancient castle. They were entering a space designed to mimic a feudal fortress, a profound aesthetic rejection of the modern world above.
The chamber they entered was vast, dimly lit by flickering sconces, its walls resembling the decaying stone of a medieval keep. At the center, next to a heavy oak table covered in ancient, leather-bound texts, stood Grand Duke Elida Maginos.
The Duke himself was a figure of absurd, tragicomic vanity. Dressed in the heavy, moth-eaten silks of an ancient noble, his face was pale and unnaturally taut, like a corpse carefully preserved in formalin.
He was posturing—standing with his back to the door, feigning absorption in an unreadable volume, utterly committed to the drama of his entrance.
The other occupants were instantly more compelling:
The Sentinel: The black butler, impeccably dressed, stood rigidly beside the Duke. His eyes were wide with genuine apprehension and hostility, muscles visibly taut as he stared at the metallic form of the Dawn Knight.
The Curio Collector: A thin man who looked like an over-caffeinated mechanical engineer stood slightly apart. He didn't look at Zhou Yi's face, but rather focused entirely on the joints and plates of the Type II armor, his eyes darting with purely scientific curiosity.
The Analyst: An older, distinguished gentleman, dressed in conservative tweeds, merely watched, his expression detached and contemplative, studying Zhou Yi as one might study an unexpected geological anomaly.
The Killing Machine (Blade): The final figure was the most dangerous. A tall, expressionless black man in a heavy, black leather trench coat and dark, mirrored sunglasses. The coat was bulky, not just from his immense physique, but from the clear, unmistakable protrusions of extreme ordinance beneath—blades, stakes, guns, and various specialized munitions.
His sheer presence projected lethal competence. He was Eric Brooks, the world's most renowned vampire hunter, and his only visible reaction to the Dawn Knight's entry was a slight, almost imperceptible downward tilt of his head—a silent, calculated assessment that categorized Zhou Yi as either Aligned (a temporary asset) or an Imminent Target (if he proved unreliable).
Nisha, ignoring the tension, stepped forward. "Father…" she began.
The Duke cut her off with a single, theatrical raise of his skeletal hand. He slowly turned, closing the ancient book with a sharp thud that echoed in the immense room.
The black-clad Sentinel immediately stepped forward, his voice gravely serious. "Gentlemen! Allow me to introduce the master of the Vampire Ruling Party, the High Duke of our Clan, Elida Maginos."
Elida offered a sweeping, grandiose gesture with an unnaturally long hand. "Welcome to my castle. We vampires live by an ancient creed: Be proud of your enemies, for they define the scope of your own triumphs. In that sense, Dawn Knight, I must genuinely thank you."
Zhou Yi felt a cold, deep fury rising inside his suit. The arrogance was staggering—the assumption that Zhou Yi's actions, which were simply pragmatic clean-up after his sister, Sharice's, near-fatal incident, were merely part of a larger, epic rivalry that validated this decrepit old man's existence. He was not a rival; he was a footnote.
He took a slow, deliberate step forward, the sound of his armored boot echoing on the stone floor.
"Enemy?" Zhou Yi's modulated voice cut through the cavernous space, dropping the pretense of civility. The synthesized baritone was deep and laced with chilling contempt.
"Old man, I crush nuisances. I do not cultivate rivals. I don't see glory in your pathetic little kingdom of dust and decay. What delusion allows you to believe that I recognize your existence as a worthy challenge?"
The words were a direct, mortal offense to the Duke's ancient pride.
The loyal Sentinel—the black butler—exploded into action. His movement was a blur of supernatural speed, a desperate defense of his master's honor.
"In the presence of the Grand Duke! Human, cease your arrogant blasphemy!" he roared. He drew a wicked-looking, ceremonial dagger and launched himself across the floor in a deadly, low arc, aiming for the thin juncture between Zhou Yi's neck and shoulder armor.
Zhou Yi did not move, save for a minor, imperceptible twitch of his right arm.
He delivered a punch. But the punch was not aimed at the Butler. It was aimed at the air two feet in front of him.
The result was not a missed strike, but a localized, controlled explosion of sound and pressure. Zhou Yi did not rely on muscle alone; he focused a massive, contained bubble of telekinetic energy around his gauntlet, compressing the air in front of him to the point of a miniature sonic boom.
The air in the contained pocket instantly collapsed. The punch ended not with a thud, but with a violent, deafening CRACK! The sound alone was paralyzing, an instantaneous, violent sonic discharge that ripped through the cavern.
A visible shockwave, a pressure pulse, erupted from the point of impact. This wave, constrained and focused by Zhou Yi's mind, behaved like a high-pressure, non-Newtonian fluid. It slammed into the charging vampire Butler.
The Sentinel's body, mid-leap, stopped instantly, contorting grotesquely against the invisible force field of compressed air. He was then violently accelerated backward, traveling at an impossible speed before slamming into the massive, decayed stone wall of the vault with a sickening thud. He didn't just hit the wall; he was momentarily plastered to it by the lingering pressure.
After a long moment of absolute silence, the body slowly slid down, leaving a perfect, man-sized, wet shadow impressed into the ancient stone.
The demonstration was terrifying in its cold precision. It was not a physical contest; it was a statement of thermodynamic and kinetic dominance.
It conveyed that Zhou Yi did not need silver, stakes, or even to touch his opponent—he could simply manipulate the fundamental forces of physics until his enemy ceased to exist.
Zhou Yi ignored the prone, ruined body of the loyal servant. He continued his slow, measured walk toward the seated Grand Duke Elida Maginos. The only sound in the castle was the faint, rhythmic dripping of ancient condensation from the stone ceiling.
The Mechanic and the Old Man were frozen in silent shock, but Blade, the veteran hunter, only shifted his weight almost imperceptibly, his stance remaining guarded and unreadable. Nisha's face, however, was pale, the earlier coldness replaced by raw, uncontrollable fear.
Zhou Yi stopped directly in front of the Duke's table, towering over him, the dark armor reflecting the flickering light.
"Now," Zhou Yi stated, his voice calm, as if nothing untoward had happened. "Let us discuss this truce on my terms. You have an audience with the Dawn Knight, not a rival. And you will begin by telling me everything you know about this 'mutant' threat."
He looked down at the old vampire, eager to see what final trick or delusion of power this man would attempt to wield. The negotiation had begun, not with a handshake, but with a statement of lethal, absolute authority.